


Red is the Rose

by steverogersandpeggycarter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve and Peggy In Love, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steverogersandpeggycarter/pseuds/steverogersandpeggycarter
Summary: The color red always reminds Steve of Peggy.  A short story written for Day 2 of Steggy Week 2020: Tropes, Cliches, and Symbols.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: Steggy Week





	Red is the Rose

# Red is the Rose

Steve Rogers had been colorblind his whole life. It didn’t bother him much—he’d never seen the world any other way. Then he agreed to be the subject for Dr. Erskine’s super-soldier experiment. The experiment didn’t just make him bigger; it corrected other things like his asthma and his vision. When he became a super-soldier, the world around him blossomed into vivid color, and he loved it. 

But the Army, valuing secrecy and camouflage, didn’t use a lot of vivid colors. Among the drab olives and browns of everyone’s uniforms, Agent Peggy Carter’s red lipstick stood out like an unexpected desert rose. It was hand-in-hand with her personality: Peggy always stood out. Steve had never met another woman with such confidence, strength, and fire. 

Peggy wore a red dress the night Steve, Bucky, and the 107th celebrated coming back from Azzano. Steve was used to women ignoring him and talking to Bucky. He hadn’t been jealous of his friend—Bucky had always done his best to include Steve in everything and tried to find him dates too—but he had always taken it for granted that Bucky was the girl magnet and he was invisible. 

But when Peggy came in and walked past Bucky to Steve, it was clear she had no eyes for anyone but him, and Steve suddenly realized he had forgotten how to breathe. Peggy talked about going dancing, after the war, with the right partner. Her eyes shone brightly that night, and the red of her lips and her dress was intoxicating. Steve couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew she was referring to a conversation they’d had even before he became a super-soldier, when he had talked about waiting for the right partner. If he hadn’t been head over heels for Peggy already, he would have fallen for her tonight.

The memory of that evening stayed with him. Throughout all his missions taking down Hydra, whether Peggy was there or not, he kept in his mind the image of the beautiful woman in red. In his compass he carried a picture of her he’d cut from a newspaper. She was his inspiration in many a battle. 

He dreamed of a time after the war when he and Peggy could be together. He longed to hold her in his arms, to kiss those red lips. But an army base was no place for romance, and Peggy was always businesslike as they went about their missions together, so Steve knew he would have to wait.

Then came the fateful day when the Howling Commandos stormed the main Hydra base, and Steve prepared to go after Johann Schmidt on his own. He had to catch up with Schmidt’s quickly departing plane, and Colonel Phillips and Peggy showed up with a commandeered Hydra car just in time. 

The car gained on the departing plane until it was directly underneath it. Steve prepared to make the jump onto the plane.

“Wait!” Peggy’s voice was urgent. Steve turned. Peggy pulled him toward her and kissed him. For a moment, the world stood still. 

“Go get him!” Peggy said, looking at Steve with the same shining eyes she’d had the night of the celebration.

Captain Phillips broke the spell. “Well, I’m not kissin’ you!” he said. 

With the memory of Peggy’s kiss on his lips, Steve jumped onto the Hydra plane. He fought Schmidt, and Schmidt grabbed the Tesseract and melted away. But Steve had no way to bring the plane safely to land. After a heart-wrenching conversation with Peggy on the radio, in which they both knew he wouldn’t make it, he forced the plane down into the icy Atlantic.

When Steve woke up, he had been asleep in the ice for 66 years. It was 2o12, and his whole world had been changed. The dream of a life with Peggy after the war was shattered. He was a man out of his time, and his great love was now only a memory.

Little things would remind him of her. Women in red dresses. Red roses. Women with red lipstick. Steve noticed women weren’t wearing red lipstick as much now as they did in the 40’s. 

An old Irish song that Steve’s mother had taught him came to mind when he thought of Peggy. Like Steve, the narrator of the song had lost the woman he loved but cherished her memory.

_Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows  
Fair is the lily of the valley  
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
But my love is fairer than any._

Steve concentrated on his work of saving the world. When his friend Tony suggested that he get a life, Steve told him, “Family...stability...the guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out.” 

“You all right?” Tony asked him.

“I’m home,” Steve said. And he believed it.

Then in 2023, as he and the other Avengers worked to undo the worldwide destruction that Thanos the Titan had caused, Steve got sent on a new kind of mission: a time heist. The Avengers had to bring back six Infinity Stones from the past. Steve found himself back at Camp Lehigh, the place where he had had his first week of Army training, in 1970.

Ducking into a random office to escape detection by the 1970s people, he noticed a framed picture sitting on a desk. The picture was familiar. It was him before he had the super-soldier serum.

Steve turned and read the name on the door: Margaret Carter, Director. Then he heard a familiar voice, and his heart beat faster. There, in the next room, only separated from him by a window and a set of open blinds, was Peggy. 

Quietly, Steve moved closer to the window. It was really her. She was alive. He’d said goodbye to her so many different times it didn’t seem as though this could be real. Scarcely daring to breathe, Steve watched her. She was talking to someone. Then she started flipping through a folder, not three feet from where Steve stood. Although twenty-five years had passed since when Steve first knew her, she still looked young and beautiful. She had on a blue dress, and she still wore red lipstick.

Steve stood still, his whole being concentrated on her. Never had he wanted anything so much as he wanted to rush into the next room. But that would jeopardize his mission, and billions of lives could be lost. 

He watched silently until Peggy rushed out of the room again. His glance fell to the picture he was still holding from her desk. After twenty-five years, the picture on her desk was still that old picture of him.

At that moment Steve made up his mind. If it was possible, when this time heist was over, when and if the world ever went back to normal, he was going back. 

* * * * *

It was a warm evening in New York in 1949 when Steve arrived back in the past. He hadn’t meant to come back to 1949. He had intended to make his date with Peggy at the Stork Club in 1945. But something had gone wrong, and he was all out of Pym Particles. At least he did know where Peggy lived in 1949. He’d found her address in some old files from S.H.I.E.L.D. before setting out from 2023. 

Steve was on a quiet street in front of a cozy yellow house. He double-checked the address against the one he had written on a slip of paper. It was Peggy’s house, but there didn’t seem to be anybody home. Steve went and knocked at the door, but he could tell even before he knocked that nobody would answer.

She must not be back from work yet. Steve slowly walked the length of the street, wondering what he would say to her when she did get home. 

In a yard near the end of the street there were two little blonde girls sitting at a table, surrounded by flowers in buckets of water. 

“Mister, do you wanna buy some flowers?” one of the girls called. “They’re fresh picked today!”

Steve fished in his pocket for coins and then remembered that he only had money from the 2000s. Nobody would accept that in 1949.

“I’m sorry, girls,” he told the little girls, “I’m afraid I can’t. I don’t have any money on me.”

“You’re a soldier, aren’t you?” the older of the two girls said. “You should take a flower for free.”

Steve smiled and came up to the table. “Yes, I’m a soldier,” he said. “What made you guess?”

“You look like our dad did when he got home from the war,” the girl said. “He looked real tired, but he was so glad to be home.” She picked out a flower from one of the buckets and pressed it into Steve’s hand. It was a red rose. “Thank you for keeping us safe.”

Steve knew better than to try to refuse. “Thank you,” he said. “I should meet your dad sometime.”

The girls smiled and waved at Steve as he left. He made a mental note to come back later when he had money and buy up the rest of their unsold flowers.

He continued on around the block, not wanting to attract undue attention by walking up and down Peggy’s street. She lived in a pretty neighborhood, Steve noticed. At this hour most people were cooking dinner. Kids were playing in the yards. It was the life Steve had always wanted but never had.

He came back around the block and saw a car in Peggy’s driveway. This was it. He was here, with no speech planned, with nothing to give her but himself. Well, and one red rose.

The words of the song came back to him:

_Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows  
Fair is the lily of the valley  
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne  
But my love is fairer than any._

It was somehow fitting that the red rose was the only thing he had with him. He couldn’t think of another thing that symbolized Peggy so well—her warmth, her liveliness, her beauty, her fiery spirit.

Steve took a deep breath and walked up to the door of Peggy’s house.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


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